There were early warning signs that I was going to end up a vampire romance author. I was not a normal little girl. People would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I would say: “Mad Scientist.” I checked out those non-fiction “Mysteries of the Paranormal” books from the school library so many times that the librarian sent a concerned note home. I was repeatedly caught reading Stephen King tucked inside my seventh-grade English textbook while everybody else was working on diagramming sentences. I was the only girl on my college newspaper staff who read Wizard Magazine.

I majored in print journalism at Western Kentucky University and used my shiny new degree to get a job at my hometown newspaper. I married my high school sweetheart, David, someone who laughs at my jokes and thinks my headful of useless pop culture trivia is sexy... and not, say, creepy and weird. For six years, I covered school board meetings, quilt shows, a man “losing” the fully grown bear he kept as a pet in his basement, and a guy who faked his death by shark attack in Florida and ended up tossing pies at a local pizzeria. When the police department’s PR officer calls your cell and says, “Only a smartass of your caliber will appreciate this assignment,” you know you’ve found your niche.

I loved my job at the paper. I loved meeting new people every day and never knowing where I would end up. But somehow, the ever-shifting schedules of a reporter did not equal "family friendly." I took a secretarial position at a local church office, which left me with dependably free evenings for the first time in my adult life. David was working the night shift that Summer and I was Losing. My. Mind. We were living in "The Apartment of Lost Souls" while building our new home. This was the place where appliances and small electronics went to die. Every night, I would sit and wait for the washing machine to start smoking or the dishwasher to vomit soap all over the floor. Then there was the plague of frogs in the bathroom that put our daughter off potty-training for about six months.

It was either write a book and channel that nervous energy somewhere, or just go completely insane. I’ve been a fan of vampires since that early middle school “I’m too old to read Babysitters’ Club books” phase. The Lost Boys was the first scary movie I was allowed to watch. I think I sort of fell in love with the idea that beautiful boys could have this monstrous, but still redeemable, side to them. I also loved any story that mixed humor and horror; in most scary movies, you'll find two or three lovely little sarcastic gems to break the tension.

And no one has ever mixed humor and horror quite like Joss Whedon.

While I loved Buffy and Angel's forays into the supernatural (and Spike, yummy, yummy Spike), I watched -- and loved -- those shows because of the fantastic writing. The dialogue was so sharp and crisp and witty. The writers of the Buffyverse managed to communicate issues that were larger than monsters and ghoulies, without being all “very special episode” about it. Buffy loses her virginity and then her vampire boyfriend turns evil and starts treating her badly. Buffy goes to college and her roommate is a bratty, soul-sucking demon. After years of fighting demons and monsters, Buffy loses her mother to something as simple as an aneurysm. It proved that horror/scifi could be smart and emotional but still be scary and cool.

I hope that the wisdom of Joss Whedon has somehow influenced my own characters’ dialogue.

The Lost Boys, Buffy, Interview with A Vampire, Dark Shadows, Blade, even the vampire-centric episode of Buck Rogers, I loved them all.

So when I sat down to write my first book, I wanted to write something I would want to read. Funny, Southern, and undead-centric. I’m a bit of a klutz in real life, so I appreciate wacky, slapstick comedy based on humiliation. I wondered, what would be the most humiliating way possible to be turned into a vampire; a story that a vampire would be embarrassed to share with their vampire buddies over a nice glass of Type O. My character is single, almost 30, and a librarian working in the small Kentucky town where she grew up. This "triple whammy of worry" has made her a permanent fixture on her Mama's prayer list. And despite the fact that she's pretty good at her job, she just got canned so her boss could replace her with a well-connected ditz who occasionally starts workplace fires. She drowns her sorrows at the local faux nostalgia-themed sports bar, and during the commute home she's mistaken for a deer and shot by a drunk hunter. And then she wakes up as a vampire.

And thus, Jane Jameson and the wacky denizens of Half-Moon Hollow were born.

The Jane Jameson series was released in 2009. I'm proud of the fact that the first book, Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was nominated for the Romantic Times Vampire Romance Book of the Year. The second and third books (Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men and Nice Girls Don’t Live Forever) were also well-received. I'm not sure if there will be a fourth book. I've spoken to my publisher, but nothing is concrete.

I will follow with my first non-paranormal trade paperback, And One Last Thing... in July 2010. Pocket Books will release my first werewolf romance, How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf in February 2011. It’s the story of a woman who moves from Mississippi to Alaska to get away from her intrusive hippy parents, only to stumble in werewolf family drama. The sequel will follow in March 2011.

But I still love vampires. I think their appeal is that they tap into two of our great subconscious fascinations. First, they're the ultimate "fixer-upper" boyfriend: we want to believe they would stop drinking blood and being all grumpy if they just found the right girl. (Namely, us.) And they'll never age, never die, and since most people would like to postpone both of those inevitabilities, we start thinking vampirism wouldn't be so bad.

And considering examples of the breed like The Lost Boys’ David, Anne Rice’s Lestat, Barnabas Collins, Blade and -- most especially -- Spike, can anyone really blame us? 

Geek Speak Magazine would like to thank Special Guest Contributor Molly Harper for sharing her story with us. Now, go and read her books!

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Visit Molly at her website: MollyHarper.com

Or at her blog: Nice Girls Don't Write Naughty Books.

For more on the Jane Jameson series, see this month's Dead and Doing It, by Rachel Hyland and Kate Nagy.

Still want more Molly? Check out her Geek Speak Staff Bio!

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